A present for Etutee

[alden]

Dear Etutee,

Here is a section of an illustration hanging on the wall of Palermo's Gaetano Lentini. I thought you might like to see it and give the readers your take on the garments depicted.

The double breasted suits in the center of the illustration serve to remind us that shorter coats create a longer leg line especially when combined with trousers with zero break.



What else do you see?

Cheers

[Etutee]

Dear Mr. Alden,

Thank you for posting this picture. Unfortunately I don’t see it very well because it appears kind of small on my computer screen, which makes it harder to study the intricate details. However, what is clearly obvious is the zero break along with shorter jackets as you observantly pointed out. In addition to that…if I am not mistaken… I see the (slightly) raised button stance, higher armholes, much tapered sleeves and above all… the shoulders… which appear to be quite natural (or waterfall like if you may). If the pants indeed have zero break then they must be slanted (or are at least drawn that way) because the back end of trousers are lower than the front. Jacket waists are another topic of interest… I mean looking at the whole the ensemble… it is over all elongating (shifted up rather than down)…which no doubt is a composite effect of all these smaller details combined together… yet at the same time it is sort of balanced with the well rounded natural shoulders and thereby does not look “stuck-up” or “stiffy” if heavily padded (built-up) shoulder lines were used instead.

This reminds me of Astaire's signature white-tie attire where he used very rounded ends for his vest and the cut of tails was shifted up to create a vertically elongating effect.

That is really what I can make of it from a small picture.

Sincerely
etutee

[manton]

I agree that those coats appear to be very soft and un- or lightly-padded. Look at the way the shoulders not only slope downward, but curve in a concave sweep from the collar down through the shoulders, then in a convex curve over the shoulders. Those are hallmarks of unpadded coats.

I notice as well a very trimly fitted skirt and hip -- no exaggerated flaring. That makes the man leaner and helps with elongation. Some of the skirts actually appear to be "cupped" -- the curve inward slightly at the bottom edge. See especially the SB coat on the far right and the one to the left of it (in the background).

Finally, the roundness. There are no sharp angles anywhere, no abrupt turns of corners. That is true of the silhouette and the way the edges are cut (look at the quarters on that SB coat). All those curves work together harmoniously. It would (for instance) look silly to see a rounded shoulder on a boxy coat, or a square shoulder on a soft, rounded coat body.

Also, it's nice to see so many light colors.